Its hard to believe that I have less than a week left here in Oxford. I have two more papers to do this week and then I finally get to relax for a while before I travel.

One of my papers is called the "long essay". Its kind of like a term paper and I have spent about a week preparing for it. I am writing about how doctrine has formed over the years and how three theologians, John Calvin, Herman Bavinck and Carl Barth, use the scriptures in their doctrine of divine election. It is a good way to not only gain an understanding of how we have come to believe what we believe about the scriptures today, but also gives me an understanding in the freewill/predestination debate.

In my time here at Oxford I have come to really appreciate scholarship and learning for the betterment of myself rather than just trying to attain a certain GPA. I think I am appreciate school and learning a lot more when I return to the States.

On Saturday I leave for Italy for 12 days. I am traveling with a group of friends to Venice, Florence, and Rome. After that I will go to Ireland for a few days and then its back to the States. I should be back in the Chicagoland area around May 2nd.

Cheers.

The rest of my Paris trip:

3/12/07
I went up the bell towers of Notre Dame and was face to face with the gargoyles. I also saw the bells of the Cathedral which were massive! After Notre Dame, we went to the Pantheon, which is a secular temple where France buries all of its national heroes. If there was ever a place where they are proud of the French Revolution, it is the Pantheon. Among those buried there are Voltaire, Alexander Dumas and the Marie and Pierre Curie. We then went to a park for lunch and participated in one of France's favorite national past times, which is lying in the sun and taking a nap for two hours during your lunch break. I also went for a walk with a friend through a forest preserve which ended at a beautiful French garden.

3/13/07
Today I went to the Palace of Versailles. What started out as a small hunting lodge soon turned into an enormous palace for several French Kings, of whom the most notable was Louis XIV. It was also here that Louis the XVI and his wife Maria Antonia caused the French to revolt against them and storm the palace.

I walked through the main parts of the palace and while it was beautiful, it was also filled with far too many tourists for it to be enjoyable. I quickly made my way through the palace and went to the gardens of the palace and spent about an hour walking through the woods and around the Grand Canal, which is a man made canal about 1.7 kilometers long. Later, I then took a tour of the palace and got to see some rooms that were not open to the general public. I enjoyed being in a place where so much history took place.

3/14/07

Today was my last day in Paris and after seeing so much in the past few days, all we had time to do before our train left was to go to the Musée de L'Armée, or Army Museum. The most significant aspect of this museum was the grave of Napoleon, which is in its own chapel and is very extravagant. The museum also had hundreds of cannons on its grounds.

The above pictures are Napoleon's grave, Versailles and a peacock in a pretty sweet garden.

In unrelated news, I was hoping to post more on this thing, but it has not been a priority because I have been so busy with school. If you are the type of person who prays, I could really use prayer right now because I am very stressed out. It has been a tremendous blessing to study in England, but it is also very strenuous and that takes a toll on other parts of my life.

Blessings,

Rich

My trip to Paris was an amazing experience and I enjoyed every minute of it. Paris is a wonderful city with a rich heritage and the people were all very nice. I took a train from London to Paris through the Channel Tunnel, which goes under the English Channel. The weather was sunny and warm the entire time we were there.

I'll try to describe my trip in two posts because I was there for 5 days and there is a lot to tell. I traveled with a couple of students from the program I am studying with.

Saturday, March 10

After getting to our hostel in Northwest Paris, we took the Metro (subway) to the center of Paris. I walked around for a few hours while the rest of the group went to the Musee de Orsee, which features many impressionist paintings. I decided to forgo the pleasure of the museum and opted to explore the downtown area instead. I stepped inside a few spectacular churches like the L'église de la Madeleine (Church of the Virgin Mary) and St. Augustine’s Cathedral. I also walked around in some of the parks downtown.

After I met up with the group again, we went to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica (Sacred Heart Basilica), which is on a hill in north Paris. It was a magnificent building which features views of the entire city. We walked about 250 steps up a winding staircase to the top of the Basilica for a magnificent view of Paris. We also went down into the catacombs of the building and saw many chapels and some medieval relics.

Sunday, March 11

We started the day by visiting the Louvre museum, which is one of the oldest and biggest museums in the world. They say that if you looked at each piece for 30 seconds that it would take an entire year to see the whole place. We arrived at the museum about 15 minutes early to avoid waiting in line and rushed straight to the Mona Lisa when the doors opened. My friend and I got to spend about 5 minutes looking at the Mona Lisa before anyone else came into the room it was in. Her eyes follow you if you walk around the room when looking at the painting. It was pretty cool, although much smaller than I expected. I also saw the code of Hammurabi, which is the oldest known written code of law in existence. After about 3 and a half hours at the Louvre, we left to go see Sainte Chappelle (Holy Chapel), which is world renowned for its magnificent stained glass windows. It was beautiful, but half of it was under construction, so I didn't get to see all the windows.

After the Sainte Chappelle, we walked to Notre Dame and I went inside. It is a magnificent building and it was very spacious inside. I anticipated it being more of a Holy place, but to my disappointment there were many noisy tourists talking very loudly and taking pictures every few seconds. It did not feel at all like a place of worship, despite the fact that we visited on a Sunday. It seems to me that France has secularized many of its magnificent Holy buildings by opening them up to tourists. They use the revenues to pay for building preservation, but none of the cathedrals I saw were used for their intended purpose. I was kind of disheartened by Notre Dame becoming such a tourist oriented place. We choose to save climbing the bell towers of the building for another day because the lines were so long.

After Notre Dame we went to see the Arch De Triumph, which was magnificent. It was built to commemorate Napoleon’s 30 military victories. There is also an eternal flame burning underneath it on top of the grave of an unknown French soldier from WWII to commemorate the many Frenchmen who died for their country during the war. The French really know how to honor their dead and celebrate their victories. They are very proud of their heritage. For example, the glorious French revolution was mentioned time and time again at many of the churches and historical sites I visited.

We ended the day by taking the elevator to the top of the Eiffel tower. We got a view of all of Paris at night and the Eiffel Tower looked amazing as well because it was all lit up.

I'll post the next two days of my trip at another time.
Blessings.

The code of Hammarubi.

Outside the Louvre.

Front of Notre Dame.

The Eiffel Tower at night.

The back of the Venus Di Milo, everyone knows what it looks like from the front so I thought it would be interesting to have a picture of the back.

After a very straining week, I am finally done with the tutorial part of my program. I am going to spend the next few days in Paris seeing the sights, primarily the Louvre museum, the Palace of Versailles, and the many other sights around the city. I am pretty excited to get away from the books for a week and just relax for a little while. I will not have computer access, so I will probably keep a journal and share my experiences after I get back.
Cheers.

Next week is the last week of term and it promises to be another tough one. I have two papers and an outline of my term paper due and just six days to get it all done. Then its off to Paris where I will celebrate my having survived a term at Oxford by neither reading nor writing anything for a whole week. Thats not to say that I don't want to read or write anything for that week, only that everything will be in French and I won't be able to understand it.
Cheers.

Trip to Buford
Today a group of us took a short field trip to the ancient town of Buford to check out a cathedral that has parts that date back to the year 600 A.D. and to take a walk through the English countryside to a town that was completely wiped out by the plague. The only thing remaining today is the town church, which has been restored to its original form.

This is the cathedral at Buford, which has been added on to many times in its history. It started out as a small Saxon church and as the years went by, many generous benefactors who wished to show their piety, built chapel additions to the church after they died.


The view of the other half of the cathedral pictured above.

No, this isn't the chocolate river from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it does serve as evidence to how muddy our hike through the country side was going to be.

This is a picture of part of the right of way passage that we used to get to the church in the abandoned village. This is a right of way passage, which is part of a complex web of walking paths that are all over England. They are a tradition dating back to medieval times, when people would use these paths as their only way to get from one town to the next. Many of these path go straight through people's property or farm fields and make it real easy to explore the countryside.


This is the church that is the only remaining building in the deserted medieval town.

A few interesting pictures...

This is Holy Trinity Church, where CS. Lewis attended Sunday services.


This is the grave of C.S. Lewis and his wife Joy which can be found in the church graveyard.


This is a view from the grounds of Blenheim Palace, where Sir Winston Churchill spent his childhood. The lake was created by damming a small river that ran through the property. Before the lake was created, the bridge in the picture rose about 80 feet above the ground and was extravagant in comparison to the river it spanned. The bridge has about 20 rooms inside the supports that are now underwater.

This is the humble grave of Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. After a massive state funeral in London, he was buried in his family burial plot at a church nearby Blenheim Palace.


This is a reconstruction of the skeleton of the Dodo, a species that was brought to Europe in the 1600's from the Island of Mauritius, which is off the coast of Madagascar. The birds went extinct after humans introduced predators such as dogs, cats and rats to their island, which the flightless birds could not evade.


This is Paul, one of my friends who tried to make some extra money by selling burritos at a "football" (that's what they call soccer) game. Unfortunately he did not get the reaction he was anticipating. When he asked some brits if they would like to buy a burrito, they responded, "What's a burrito?" This is a picture from a mewithoutyou concert I went to in London.

This is the Radcliffe Camera, which contains two of the major reading rooms of the Bodleian library, which has over 12 million books!

Cheers.

I have been studying the gospels and the period in which they were written for the past four weeks. Both my understanding and perspective have changed in regards to the gospels, and as a result my faith in what they proclaim has also been strengthened. A lot of the questions that I had about discrepancies between the different gospel accounts have been answered by looking at the gospels in their context. Each gospel writer is writing to a specific audience at a specific time in history, and each chooses to focus on different aspects of the Christ story in order to communicate their purpose to their readers.

My perspective on Christianity and the scriptures as a whole has also changed since I have been here. I knew before that there were many connections between the Old and New Testaments, but now I believe that the gospel writers did not exactly write their gospels with the intention that there was going to be a New Testament at all. They did not think they were writing a New Testament so much as they were writing a continuance of the Jewish scriptures, showing that Christ had come to make all things new and complete the Law. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tell the same basic Christ story, but each one focuses on different aspects of that story. They all incorporate Jewish themes and Old Testament themes to a certain extent in their gospel. Each wrote his gospel 30 or more years after Christ ascended to heaven, and each writer wrote from the perspective of a church that was facing many challenges between Judaism and the emerging religion of Christianity. The gospel writers did not necessarily intend for Christianity and Judaism to be two distinct religions. One of the intentions in writing their gospels was that they meant to show how Christ came to complete the law and radically reinterpret Judaism. This can be drawn out of the gospels because we see that Christ did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17) and by all of the Jewish themes that are in the New Testament. In its earliest forms, Christianity was indistinguishable from Judaism, and it wasn't until Christ was largely rejected as the messiah by mainstream Judaism that Christianity emerged as its own distinct religion.

This is an attempt at a brief summation of what I have been learning thus far. I sometimes struggle to articulate effectively what I have been learning, so I hope this makes sense.
Cheers.

For each tutorial of my tutorials, I spend about 20-30 hours a week preparing a paper to present to my tutor. During our meeting, I read the paper to him and then spend the remainder of the time discussing the topic and debating and conflicts of interest that myself and my tutor might be having. It might seem strange to spend so much time preparing for a one hour conversation, but when I am asked questions or have my position challenged, I want to be able to defend myself.
Back at home, professors write up test questions and I study the night before and try to spew out the information that I will most likely forget minutes after I take the test. Here, the "test" comes each week when I meet with my tutor. I don't want to look like a fool in front of a person who has a doctorate in the field of theology, so I work all week trying to "know my stuff" for when I present my paper to him. While my tutor is usually quick to refute the position that I have taken on the week's topic, I learn a lot from my mistakes. Interestingly enough, I retain what I have learned long after the discussion with my professor is over.
There have been many times when I have left my tutorial feeling like quite the fool. I don’t really let that get to me though. I learn from my mistakes and move on knowing that my one week of research about a question pales in comparison to my tutor’s years of research in the field of theology. While I do not always assume the same position on questions my tutor raises, I do respect his opinion and walk away having had my own position strengthened.

A ride through the English countryside



On Saturday, a group of us set out to explore the English countryside on our bikes. The route that was supposed to be 15 miles turned out being about 20 after some unscheduled detours. Cycling through the country was a great way to experience rural England. As we went down the narrow country roads with rolling hills, we saw many aspects of the countryside such as stone walls dividing different fields, small one street villages with houses built of brick and stone, and of course, plenty of sheep.

This is a typical view of the English Countryside. Oxford is far in the distance to the left.

One of the highlights of the trip was Jarn Mound, which has an interesting history. The mound was built by Sir Arthur Evans so that people visiting the countryside could get a better view of Oxford. He also purchased the land around the mound to prevent it from being developed. The ironic thing is that the land around the mound is now so overgrown that you can not get a clear view of Oxford.

A few of the many sheep that we saw along the way.

Aside from my trip to the country, this week has been for the most part uneventful. I spend most weekdays researching and writing essays for my tutorials. I had two tutorials this week, which meant twice the workload of a normal week. This week should not be as strenuous because I only have one tutorial.

Cheers.

Its hard to believe that I have been here for over two weeks. Time has been flying by and I am in the full swing of things in regards to academics. I spend most days researching for my weekly topics about the gospels and about Judaism in the time of Christ. I probably spent about 8 hours reading today and I still have more to go. I have one or two essays due each week and I need to have enough knowledge about each topic to be able to defend the position that I take to my tutor, who has a doctorate in their field.

But don’t worry, its not all academics here. There are times when I do manage to slip away from the library for some fun. For fun on the weekends we sometimes check out different pubs around Oxford. The pub scene is pretty big here and all the locals have a pub they call their own. Pubs are a good place to hang out with a group of friends or to meet locals and each one has its own unique characteristics that distinguish it from others. I usually go to a place called the Radcliffe Arms, which has American Football on during the playoffs. (Go Bears!!!)

Oxford also has plenty of museums, all of which are free. I went to the Oxford museum of Natural History last weekend and it was incredible. The University has been collecting different things from all over the world for quite some time and have compiled an astounding collection with millions of items. On display, they have several life size dinosaur skeletons and actual skeletons from animals like deer, elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and even people. (About 250 years ago, , those who received the death penalty had their bodies donated to the University science and afterwards and the skeletons were used for teaching.)
The museum has another room which is almost indescribable. I spent about and hour walking through a room filled to the top with many display cases each filled with random anthropological objects from around the world. Rather than put just a small amount of their vast collection on display they have put so many items out that it is almost impossible to look at all of them. Among the highlight of the collection, there is case filled with shrunken heads, an antique gun collection, model boats from around the world, a mummy, clothes from around the world, different writing utensils from different periods in history, and hundreds of other objects that are too numerous to mention.

Cheers. (That’s the British way of saying, “Have a good one!”)

Running in Oxford

Today I had my first experience running with the Oxford Cross-country team. Back in the states, cross-country is a fall sport, but here they run it year round. I arrived a bit early at the meeting place and wasn't exactly sure what to expect or if anyone was even going to show up. I was the second person to arrive and I wasn't even sure if I was in the right place. In just a few minutes runners began to trickle in and before I knew it there were about 25 people there.
When the time came to go, we just took off running. I did not really know how far or for how many minutes we were going to run. There was no coach and no meeting like I am used to back home. As we started going, I kind of just went along with the flow of runners and I got to talking to a grad student who was from Chicago who was running next to me. (It is kind of funny how many people from Illinois I am meeting here.) The group maintained a pretty good pace for the most part, stopping at different places to wait for those who couldn't keep up. This experience was very different than practice back at home.
After the run was over, I was invited to come back Tuesday for a repeats workout. I am looking forward to running with a new crowd of people for a while.
There is a rich history of running here at Oxford. The cross-country program is about 125 years old. The track here at Iffley Road holds the distinction of being the place where Roger Bannister (Now Sir Roger Bannister) became the first person to break four minutes in the mile back in 1954. There was fierce competition to be the first person in the world to accomplish this feat, and after many attempts, it was finally done here at Oxford. Bannister became a national hero overnight for the feat and over 3000 people watched him break the mark. No matter how many times the current mile record is broken (it is now 3:43), Bannister will aways be remembered as the first to break four minutes. It is humbling to be running at a place with so much prestige.

Today I finally had the chance to wander around Oxford and take pictures. Here are just a few of the ones that I think you might find interesting. The first few are from Oxford while the rest are from Hampton Court Palace, where many prominent people in Britain's history have resided in the past 500 years.

This is "The Vines", which is about 120 years old and currently houses about 45 Scholars Semester in Oxford students, including myself, from many different Christian Colleges all over America.



This is Wycliffe Hall, my college. Oxford has around 32 different colleges and together they make up Oxford University. Wycliffe hall has a great theology Library so I will probably spend a lot of time here over the next few months doing research for my papers.

I believe this is St. Giles' church. It is interesting to see this church and its graveyard right in the middle of the city center in one of the busiest areas of Oxford. There are tall buildings and shops all around the church and the fence around the graveyard has become a popular place for people to lock their bikes up.

This is Christ Church College. It is a spectacular building inside and out and the dining hall is said to be the inspiration for the dining hall in the Harry Potter series.

This is Hampton Court Palace which is in London, about one hour from Oxford. This is just a small section of the palace which I spent about five hours exploring without seeing the same room twice. Many of England's royalty, nobility and Statesmen have lives in the palace in its history, most notably Henry VIII, who is famous for having 6 different wives in his lifetime and starting his own church apart from the Catholic Church in order to divorce the 5th one.

An eastern view of the palace from the Fountain Gardens.

A view of the now empty moat and the first of two gates one must go through to enter the main courtyards of the palace.

Tutorials
It has been a pretty busy week so far. I finally have a clearer picture of what I am going to be doing in the next couple of months. I am taking two tutorials for the next 8 weeks and aside from working on a seminar paper about a topic that I have yet to choose. Oxford has a completely different system of teaching than in America and it seems like it suits my needs better than back at home.
In the tutorial system, the focus is more about developing a discussion between the tutor and the student. Rather than lecture to a lot of students at the same time and holding the student accountable for what they are supposed to have learned through tests, my tutor and I will meet and discuss different topics that he assigns me to research. My tutor will give me a topic or question to develop a thesis about. I will spend the week researching the topic and writing a paper about it. Some tutors assign books to read while others allow the student to find their own books. Once a week, I will meet with my tutor and read the essay to him. Afterwards, we will discuss what I wrote and he will essentially pick apart everything that I wrote and question it. The point is not so much to write a good essay as it is to be able to thoroughly defend the position I am taking.
Every student does two tutorials at a time, a primary one, which meets once a week for 8 weeks and a secondary tutorial which meets every other week for 8 weeks. My primary tutorial is called Jesus and the Gospels and my secondary tutorial is Judiasm:100 B.C.-100 A.D.
All this being said, it seems that I am going to be pushed academically more so than I ever have been before.
Besides academics, I am also enjoying the city of Oxford itself. There are many features to this city and it is full of surprises. It is also a very pedestrian friendly city and I have no trouble riding through the city center on my bike. All of the buildings are made of brick or stone and are usually between 100 and 400 years old. The architecture is simply stunning and there are buildings from many different periods in Britain's history. As soon as I get the chance to take some good pictures of the prominent ones, I will post them here.
Blessings.

Hello all,
I am finally here.
Oxford is a beautiful place with many interesting people and lots of wonderful architecture.
Unfortunately, the only I have really done since getting here is sleep.
Thats what you get when you mix jetleg and not sleeping so much in the past 48 hours.
After Harold and Erica's wedding, Theresa and I drove through the night for about 6 hours to Winfield where I got some things I needed to bring and then it was off to O'hare.
My plane got to New York at about 2:30 (NY time) and after some delays I took off at about 11. I met some interesting people in the New York Airport including some that had already traveled here and gave me some great advice about England. Its amazing how friendly people can be when they have nothing to do but wait for their plane.
We landed in London at about 9:30 (UK time) and hopped on a bus to Oxford.
This is a wonderful city that I have yet to see much of thanks to my excessive sleepiness.
This week promises to be a busy one with all of our orientation activities.
I feel very blessed to be here and am looking forward to my experiences here.

Peace.